


Ecclesial

by Stairre



Series: Resonance [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cybertronian culture, Don't copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Bounty Hunting, Implied/Referenced Cultural Erasure, Implied/Referenced Dystopic Society, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, There are no good guys in war, implied/referenced use of religion as a means of oppression, me on my way to do more worldbuilding like ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ, the importance of religion in resistance to those who would oppress you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: It's been so long since Hot Rod's had an opportunity to make a naos, and it'simportantto him as a Nyonite. He's not going to let the chance slip by. Deadlock's not sure what a naos even is, but if it's that important to Hot Rod, then by golly it'll be the best naos in the known galaxies.---Or: Hot Rod makes some interior design adjustments on board theLuminary, Deadlock is the World's Best Supporting Spark-mate, discussions of Cybertronian religious and spiritual practices are centre-point, Functionists are cursed fervently, and an old dream reveals itself to still hold sway in Deadlock's cynical spark.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod
Series: Resonance [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843339
Comments: 20
Kudos: 62





	Ecclesial

**Resonance**

**Ecclesial**

–

The _Luminary_ is not a _large_ ship, particularly, but its make is meant to strike a good balance between passenger capacity and crew efficiency. That sounds like a shipyard advert, when Hot Rod thinks of it like that, but in a very real practical sense it means that the _Luminary_ can be piloted by a single very-organised mech, or, better, a crew of two or three, while still having the space for around six to eight mecha to stay comfortably, depending on how the hab suites are split.

Currently, both he and Deadlock have each taken a separate hab, a mutual decision made, not out of any particular discomfort, but rather a need to draw boundaries, especially while this whole – _thing –_ is still so new. Hot Rod _likes_ having his own private space, and he also likes recharging beside Deadlock, when they end up dozing off on the sofa together. A need to have privacy and a want to share do not have to cancel each other out.

Still, that leaves four hab suites empty, and while they’re working on converting one into a holding cell complete with stasis chambers for both organic and mechanical species, in preparation for future bounty hunting, three are up for grabs. And – there’s something Hot Rod desires to do with one. Something he’s not ever had a chance to do, not properly. Not since Nyon.

“I wanna convert one of the spare habs into a naos,” Hot Rod says to Deadlock one morning, after turning the thought over and over in his mind all night. “The one with the tinted viewport.”

Deadlock looks at him with nothing but bafflement on his faceplates. “I – okay? Do what you want, I don’t mind.”

Hot Rod pauses a moment, then says, accurately deducing that his mate doesn’t know what he means, “You might know it as a cella?” he tries, pulling the alternate word out of the depths of his vocabulary bank.

Deadlock slowly shakes his head. “Do what you want,” he reiterates. “I really don’t mind.”

Hot Rod, sensing that continuing the conversation – thereby bringing more attention to Deadlock’s lacking education and making him self-conscious and frustrated – is not the best idea, lets it go. Deadlock will ask, later, when he feels like he can. Hot Rod’s become swiftly aware that sometimes his spark-mate needs time to come around to things on his own, even when he wants it, and that pushing only makes him distressed in his own quiet way.

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll start prepping the room now, make a list of stuff I might need – don’t think it’ll be much, not meant to be a resource-heavy thing – but I’ll be movin’ furniture into the opposite hab, so if you hear cursing and scraping, don’t worry, it’s jus’ me fighting with shelving units.”

Deadlock snorts softly and turns back to his monitor. “Good luck,” he says. “Call me if you need me.”

“Will do,” Hot Rod says, trailing out of the cockpit. He wonders how long it will take for Deadlock to get curious.

–

Hot Rod wrestles the shelving units off the walls, relocates the berth side table into another hab suite, respectfully removes all traces of the previous owner’s presence, and is staring annoyed at the heavy berth when his spark-mate finally pokes his head in.

“Everything all right in here?” Deadlock asks. He must have felt the irritation in Hot Rod’s spark.

“Fine, all in all,” Hot Rod replies. “Can you help me move the berth?”

Deadlock does, using his superior strength to heave it on to its side and then the two of them manoeuvre it with some difficulty across the hall. Damn, Hot Rod is so happy that the _Luminary’s_ auto-pilot doesn’t need much supervision, because this is definitely a two-mech job.

Deadlock joins him as he finishes emptying the room, helping Hot Rod extract the recharge station from the wall and disconnect and move the monitor in the corner. The side door that leads to the wash-rack this hab and the one next to it shares will have to be ignored for now, but Hot Rod goes around and locks it from the other side, to make the door unusable except by emergency code, and that’s the best he can do for now.

Then he breaks out the sanitary equipment, preparing to give the entire room – floor, ceiling, walls, and all – a deep-clean. He expects Deadlock to leave then, because no one tends to like heavy duty sanitising, especially when it’s only necessary symbolically rather than actually, but Deadlock only walks out briefly to check on the auto-pilot before he’s back and taking one of the sprays in hand.

_He doesn’t even know what it’s for,_ Hot Rod marvels silently, _and he didn’t even hesitate._

He’s still not used to someone being unequivocally in his corner. People say that that’s what a spark-mate is supposed to be: someone who’ll stand with you. Not thoughtlessly, not unquestioningly, but just – there, even when you’re wrong and they’re telling you that, when you make a mistake and they love you anyway. When you’re stumbling your way through a new life, trying to be a better person than you were before, and they’re stumbling too, and you’re both stumbling together.

Hot Rod and Deadlock clean the hab from top to bottom, side to side, ‘til all they can smell are disinfectants and the walls are gleaming enough to produce faint coloured shapes of their reflections. Hot Rod sets the extraction vents running – else the med-bay like smell won’t leave for forever – and bundles all the cleaning products into his arms before exiting the room, Deadlock following. He takes a moment to vent in normal ship-air once the door slides shut behind them.

“Naos?” Deadlock asks quietly.

And – Hot Rod struggles for a moment. It’s a very Nyonic word, with context needed to explain. “It’s… I suppose you might call it a prayer room,” he ends up saying, “though that’s really not doing what it is justice. It’s – you know what, let’s put these away first, ‘cause there’s a bit of an explanation to this one.”

–

“’Kay,” Hot Rod says, when they’re both sitting on the sofa, the energon spray long since cleaned off, though for a moment, as memories crowd in, he imagines that he can almost feel it there, wet and warm against his spoiler wings, dripping down. “So. Nyon. Um…”

Deadlock waits with all the patience of a sniper, red optics soft.

“You know how the Functionists, like, basically rewrote religion when they came more fully into power?” Hot Rod decides to start. “You know, they emphasised certain traits of the Guiding Hand over others, funded certain temples and made sure others became too poor to keep their doors open an’ stuff? So they controlled mainstream belief, an’ endorsed their own values?”

Deadlock nods, and Hot Rod can feel that old rage in his spark, the one that echoes his own. “Yes,” his mate says.

Hot Rod nods in commiseration. “Yep. Frag the Functionists an’ all that. ‘Kay, so… Nyon – _was_ – quite religious. Pretty spiritual. But not in the way the Functionists liked. They fraggin’ hated us, which was fine, ‘cause we hated them, too. Anyway, Nyon’s spiritual culture tended more towards that, I don’t know, pre-Golden Age tradition? We told the old stories, the ones the Functionists didn’t like, the ones they scored out o’ the records or changed to fit their ideals.”

Hot Rod twists his fingers together, wishing he had something to fiddle with. In his memories, he can hear the hymns, those songs banned from the common audio, those old words illegal. “The Functionists… they _reduced_ the Guiding Hand,” he says, “made them less complex, more – boxed in? Like… Solomus is meant to embody wisdom, justice, and providence, right? But he’s more than that; in the old stories, sometimes he makes mistakes, or he can be overbearing, can stifle progress or creativity and later has to step back and admit he was wrong. Sometimes, he’s even cruel, or too inflexible. But the Functionists took away his depth, made him into their _he became the Matrix and he passes his wisdom on to the Prime –_ and _they controlled the Prime!_ They used him to bolster their own – frag – their own _divine right to rule.”_

Hot Rod clenches his hands into fists, and Deadlock rests a hand on his shoulder. It takes a couple of moments of too-heavy ventilations for him to calm down. “Sorry,” he says, taking a breath and continuing. “So, anyway, they streamlined religion and spirituality and such into their _one right scripture,_ totally ignoring the varying interpretations, the reams and reams of historical and cultural myths and the way they’re all different from each other. Solomus didn’t even become the Matrix in, like, half of the different teachings. There’s more than just _one reading,_ but functionalism leaves no room for nuance, only absolutes, and obedience.”

“Functionists deal only in absolutes,” Deadlock puts in, “they lack the compassion for other ways of life – the _willingness_ to learn, and accept. Everything has to fit perfectly into their labels, and if it doesn’t… they trim off the excess and _make_ it fit.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Hot Rod snorts, even though it’s not funny. “So, Nyon isn’t buying what they’re selling, but Functionists are slaggin’ scary, an’ they have a lot of power. So Nyon buries their history an’ culture – literally _buries,_ the under-layers were full of things that woulda gotten any number o’ us killed if an outsider ever saw an’ reported ‘em – hides it away, performs it in secret. Now, this next part is maybe gonna sound a little weird.”

Deadlock takes his hand. “It’s not gonna be weird,” he says. “Just different. The Functionists wanted everyone to be the same, so don’t think like that. That’s _them_ talking.”

Hot Rod blinks. He opens his mouth a little, closes it, and then says, “I – yeah. You’re right.” He straightens up a little from his slouch, flexing his spoiler wings. “Okay,” he continues, “so… there’s this big thing in Nyon about, like, the city being alive – not even in the way Metroplex later proved, though that was old oral legend too – but, like. _Every_ city is alive, ‘cause it’s where people live, and, like, their sparks and minds bring the streets and buildings around them to life as well. You know that feeling when you walk into places an’ you’re like _something bad happened here?_ Like the walls themselves remember? Like that, but for _everything._ The good and the bad and the in-between. Nyon had a spirit, jus’ like Rodion had a spirit, an’ Tarn, an’ Iacon, an’ every place a group of Cybertronians called _home.”_

Deadlock listens, intent. “I’ve never heard of that kind of thing before,” he admits, “but… I have felt that – _the walls remember_ – kind of thing. Anyway, you were saying?”

“’Kay, so, every place that is ever called _home_ is alive,” Hot Rod repeats. “And – temples, shrines, places of worship? They’re the home of the gods. An’ – Nyon, it – it didn’t separate where gods lived from where mortals lived, not really. Gods are _intrinsic_ in the world, gods _aren’t separate_ from what’s around us, not _really._ Like, Epistemus is knowledge, right? But he exists inside everyone who wants to learn things, he exists inside archives and repositories, and in the flora and fauna and the very air itself. He _embodies_ his domains, and is, simultaneously, _without_ a body – or at least any physical form he takes is not his limitation.”

Hot Rod remembers, now – how could he have forgotten? – the sense of _comfort_ that had come with knowing that if he spoke, his gods would hear, because they were never far, not really. He shutters his optics, trying to summon the vision of the inside of the hidden temples from his memory.

“Gods are alive in the world, and places are alive, and gods live with us, not separate, and gods live in temples and shrines and places of worship, and these places are their homes and we aren’t separate from _them,_ so they’re also _our homes,”_ Hot Rod gets out, hoping that his spark-mate is following the logic, however strange it may be. “All of Nyon was considered to be a temple, in essence, all of _everywhere,_ because the gods live in _everything._ Actual temples are just – focal points. Something to make worship easier on us mortals, somewhere we can come together if we want to, but private worship is no less worship for its lack of ceremony.”

“And the… naos?” Deadlock asks after a moment, gently sending comfort down the bond, which, _good,_ because Hot Rod’s feeling a bit raw.

“It’s a word meaning the inner part of a temple,” Hot Rod says. “So is _cella._ It’s like the innermost chamber, hidden away, where the idols were kept and where the altar was. When the Functionists began their campaign, the word shifted in use from meaning a literal naos to also encompassing _any_ hidden prayer room inside Nyon. Nyon was a temple, an’ we were hiding our religion away, so these – you might consider them to be monk’s cells – were tucked away everywhere, but mostly they were built in homes, secreted away behind false panels for personal use. Windowless rooms, mostly, you can imagine.”

“Hence wanting the hab with the tinted view-port,” Deadlock extrapolates.

Hot Rod nods. “Yep. I – the ‘Bots had chapels an’ stuff, for those who wanted to pray, but. It wasn’t very Nyonic, an’ all their sermons were that state-approved slag. Used to pray in my hab, whenever my room-mate wasn’t there, but – it wasn’t a naos, a cella. It wasn’t _special._ An’ I know I said that you don’t need a special place to pray, but havin’ somewhere you can welcome the gods into is really important. So. I’m convertin’ that hab.” He nods decisively.

“And deep cleaning is the first step?” Deadlock asks, lightly teases.

Hot Rod looks at him. “It’s the guest room you’re giving to the gods,” he says, not without humour, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips. “You don’t have a dirty naos, you just _don’t.”_

–

“I’m kinda… envious,” Deadlock says quietly, a couple of days later, carefully concentrating on the cables he’s re-insulating. There’s no actual damage left, but the _Luminary_ had sat at the dock on Renta VII for years, and some light degradation is to be expected.

Hot Rod makes a questioning hum, fiddling with the wiring behind a key pad next to a door a little further down the hall. There’s plenty to be done around the ship, but – they end up working in the same general area, more often than not. Neither of them have yet brought it up.

“You have… faith,” Deadlock struggles out. “In the Dead End, we never had that.”

_The Dead End._ Hot Rod pauses in his fiddling. Deadlock has a Rodionic accent, tempered by small pieces of Tarnian and Kaonic, likely picked up from his old fellows, so it’s not like Hot Rod didn’t know where he was from, but – there’s a difference, between being from Rodion, and being from the Dead End.

“What did you have instead?” he asks, after taking a moment to absorb his spark-mate’s origins and how it recontextualises bits of his past that Hot Rod has picked up on. They’ve not yet really sat down together and spilt stories to each other – and probably won’t for a good while – but pieces here and there have come through, honest in fragments in a way that even Hot Rod had never been with those he called his friends amongst the Autobots.

Deadlock shrugs. “Urban legends, mostly,” he says, re-sheathing a cable with more concentration than is strictly necessary. “And they were all horror stories anchored in real stories. Nothin’ _but_ horror, down there. And none of them were much about the Guiding Hand – had a few ‘bout Unicron, but religion? It was for mecha up-top, an’ we weren’t _that.”_

“Up-top?” Hot Rod echoes, confused by the turn of phrase.

“On the upper layers,” Deadlock clarifies. “Those who lived _above._ You know – _up-top._ Religion was for _them,_ not for us who scuttled about below. There _was_ a temple, next to one of the traverse-ways, but it charged for entry. No one down in the Dead End had that kind of shanix to spare, not for something that wouldn’t even feed you by the end.”

Hot Rod listens, and – “Did you want to go?” he asks.

Deadlock stiffens. Silence descends for a moment before he uncoils, the tension draining from his EM field.

“Yeah,” he admits quietly, not facing Hot Rod, his hands still. “I – I liked the singing. You could hear it from outside, and, sometimes… I stood in an alley nearby, trying to avoid the sight of the enforcers ‘cause they sure patrolled that area heavily, and just – listened. I wanted to go in, sing rather than be silent and hide and only half-hear, but – music doesn’t fill your tanks, and they probably wouldn’t have let me in anyway. Too filthy for a holy house.”

Hot Rod wavers a moment. Should he go to Deadlock? Would a hand on his shoulder pauldron be welcome, or would he hate it? Being spark-mated doesn’t mean that he knows these things instinctually. Before he can decide either way, Deadlock speaks again.

“I know it was just the state-propaganda stuff,” he says quietly. “But – I don’t know. Maybe I wanted that faith, that things could be better, that someone out there, someone I didn’t even know, _cared._ Maybe I wanted to sing without fear. Or maybe I just wanted to have enough shanix that I _could_ go, because if I could afford to go, then I could afford for my tanks to not be empty, and for my armour to not be dirty. I don’t know if I liked the _idea_ more than anything, but. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It never happened, and it’s useless to wish it did, when all the temples are rubble.”

Deadlock puts down the finished cable he’s holding and reattaches the wall panel with more noise and force than strictly necessary, the clanging ringing through the silent hall. Then he turns and leaves without another word, walking away from Hot Rod and out of sight.

–

Deadlock’s finials flick as he jolts out of recharge not knowing what woke him. His arm is already transformed halfway into his pulse cannon, pointing out in to the air at nobody, vibrant orange-white light illuminating the room in a glow too soft for such a violent origin, his systems humming.

At the sight of his empty hab – too empty, he feels, and curses himself for getting used to Hot Rod’s semi-permanent presence so quickly – he cycles his combat programs back to standby and sits up properly, his cannon becoming his arm once again. It’s – quiet, mostly, but now he can hear something faint, coming from elsewhere in the ship.

It’s Hot Rod, it must be. He’s the only other one here, and he’s currently trying to give Deadlock his space because that’s what Deadlock was silently signalling for him to do, in every way but verbal. What does it matter if Deadlock closed the door to his hab suite earlier and immediately felt his mate’s intense absence? He brought this one on himself.

… Should he go investigate?

Deadlock lingers on the berth, listening. He can definitely hear Hot Rod murmuring, low and rhythmic, and he debates back and forth for a few moments. Eventually, he gets fed up with his own hesitance, and plucks at the bond like he’s a musician testing a string in a wordless query, knowing that the sense of curiosity from him will fill out the rest of the question.

Hot Rod doesn’t startle, the way Deadlock is half-expecting him to. Instead, he pings back a feeling of welcome, and Deadlock knows that it’s an invitation.

Well.

Deadlock ghosts out of his hab and down the halls, steps near-silent. Out here, and as he gets closer, the murmuring of his spark-mate becomes words, chanted to a silent beat, and Deadlock can understand maybe one in three of them. Hot Rod had said that Nyon had kept using Old Cybertronian, hadn’t he? In secret, perhaps, but his mate is clearly fluent – no, it’s probably his first language, with Neo-Cybex having been learnt after.

Deadlock stops outside the door to Hot Rod’s naos. His mate is inside, he can hear it, he can _feel_ it, their sparks pulsing as one.

Inside is – well. He hasn’t been inside since he helped Hot Rod clean the room from top to bottom, but he knows that his spark-mate has set up some kind of altar in there, from a repurposed low table taken from the common room where once up to eight mecha could have gathered, unneeded by their crew of two.

Of the rest, he has no idea, but he knows that Nyonic naoi are not meant to be expensive rooms to create. Hot Rod’s already said that it isn’t finished, but it being a work in progress makes it no less a naos, according to his mate. _Our relationship with the gods is always changing and evolving,_ his spark-mate had told him, _so things don’t stay static in there._ _As long as you put in the effort, put in the_ _ **intent**_ _, they appreciate that more than the actual pieces that make it up._

State-approved temples had always been gloriously expensive, full of beautiful icons and reliefs, statues and windows, and beautifying the houses of the Guiding Hand had long been entrenched as being their _due._ The idea of a god caring more about the intent, about the person making it than the thing made… Deadlock had never heard of such a thing, but he cannot deny that it appeals to him greatly, somewhere down in his poverty-forged spark.

Deadlock lingers outside a moment more, letting the sound of Hot Rod’s unaccompanied hymn wash over him. From what he can understand, through Hot Rod’s unfamiliar accent and the outlawed words, the song seems to be praising… Mortilus? There’s a word being attributed to him that Deadlock half-knows – _transformation –_ but he can’t quite parse out all the sub-glyphs layering more meaning into it. What is Hot Rod singing about, to their god of death?

There’s another tug at Deadlock’s spark, Hot Rod welcoming him in once again, clearly able to sense him just outside the door, and he takes that as his cue to place his hand against the panel – it lets him in, full access, which Hot Rod did not have to grant but apparently _has –_ and step inside the naos.

Inside is not all that much different than what he was expecting: the table repurposed as an altar centred on the back wall, Hot Rod kneeling in front of it, his back to his mate. Deadlock can see that the strip lights on the ceiling have been set to their dimmest setting, and the clear glass panels covering them have been removed – is Hot Rod planning to replace them with a different colour, perhaps? The walls are bare, except for faint sketched lines where Hot Rod has drawn out where paint will go later. Upon them, Deadlock can see the outlined depictions of some of the standard iconography associated with the Guiding Hand, though – different, in places. Enough to stand out as non-standard, as non- _standardised._

Hot Rod doesn’t let up his murmuring, even as Deadlock fully steps inside and the door slides shut behind him, plunging the room back into an atmospheric low light. The altar is nearly bare – they haven’t any textiles to cover it, yet, so what little Hot Rod has gathered together out of pieces from around the ship is sitting on the bare table. There’s a cog from the engineering spares, carefully cleaned, and obviously – to Deadlock’s optics – meant to be a stand in for the beautifully crafted and inlaid with gold cogs used as a symbol for Adaptus in many temples. Gold – malleable, and conductive of electricity. Perfect for their shifting god of transformation.

The other icons are not so immediately clear: there’s an illumination stick, the ones used in the field that when bent in the middle will crack and begin to glow through a chemical reaction, used as alternate light sources… Primus, maybe? Their god of light and life? There’s a device set up that Hot Rod had identified as an astrolabe designed for use in Cybertron’s system that they had found amongst the remains of the previous owners belongings, likely left unplundered by the pirates due to its uselessness to them and barren chances of being sold onwards… who is that meant for?

There’s also a data-pad, screen lit, on the altar, though Deadlock is at the wrong angle to see what text is on it, and has no clue as to who it’s meant to be for, and a glowing phial filled with energon – it’s not the right shade of pink, or the correct luminosity, so it can’t be innermost energon, which is impossible to mistake as anything but if one has seen some, but the imagery is definitely there. Deadlock tentatively marks that one down as being for Mortilus.

“Hot Rod?” Deadlock asks, quietly, after a few moments of the two of them being together in the room, unsure if he should interrupt, but Hot Rod isn’t stopping his singing, and Deadlock’s at a loss for what else to do.

Hot Rod stops, falling quiet, a hush settling through the room. Deadlock can still hear the distant rumble of the engines, the hum of the electronics, see the darkened streaks of stars through the tinted view-port – life has not cast this room adrift. The quiet hush is – comfortable, somehow. Like when he and Hot Rod are sitting next to each other, and there is no onus to talk, and he has nothing to say, but basking in the wordless company is peaceful, and he feels no need to interrupt it. In old times, times long gone now, Deadlock used to share this type of silence with Gasket, with Megatron, but now he has only his spark-mate to spend it with.

Deadlock steps closer, and, when Hot Rod doesn’t rise and face him, closer still until he’s right beside his mate, ‘til he’s kneeling down next to him, in front of the altar. Only when he’s down there does Hot Rod turn to look at him, blue optics so, so bright. Rumour has it that Primus’ optics are blue, that the Matrix chooses only those whose optics shine with that same light, and Deadlock’s not sure whether he truly believes in Primus, but he _knows_ that he believes in Hot Rod.

“Hot Rod?” Deadlock repeats.

“Deadlock,” Hot Rod says back. “Thought you’d never come in.”

“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to,” Deadlock replies, and it’s true – Nyon’s worship was surely for _Nyonites,_ right? Deadlock’s washed-up Dead End scum, not a mech from one of the most ancient and cultured cities of Cybertron, no matter what damage Functionist oppression left on his spark-mate’s home.

“You are,” Hot Rod reassures instantly. “You’re about the farthest thing from a Functionist that it’s possible to be.”

“Thanks,” Deadlock says, because even the thought of being the slightest bit like them is sickening. “The altar?” he asks, and Hot Rod’s spark is deeply entwined with his own, and he knows that his spark-mate feels his curiosity. Deadlock has never seen the inside of an intact temple, not in real life, and holos aren’t the same. Though this is a Nyonic naos, not a Functionist-standardised temple, he still remembers the cold on his plating as he lingered in that nearby alleyway, the scent of dirt and rust surrounding him, and the faint whiffs he sometimes picked up of incense as it floated on occasional vent gusts outwards. How he’d longed to go inside, just _once…_

Hot Rod nods to the collection atop the table. “Cog’s for Adaptus,” he says, “an’ the illumination stick’s for Primus. I’ll get him a proper fire lamp of some kind in the future, maybe some nice incense to burn in the top of it. Phial is for Mortilus, data-pad’s for Epistemus, an’ the astrolabe’s for Solomus.”

“I get why Mortilus is the phial,” Deadlock says, “but Epistemus and Solomus?”

“Data-pad’s got a buncha encyclopedias an’ stuff on it, courtesy of our late past-owner,” Hot Rod explains, “so that’s, like, knowledge an’ stuff for him. Astrolabe’s – well. I didn’t exactly have a set of scales for Solomus’ justice aspect, so I went with an astrolabe for his providence one.”

“Providence?” Deadlock asks – he knows he’s heard the word before, but he’s never been _exactly_ sure of its meaning, let alone how to interpret it within the context of Solomus. Once, Megatron got asked these questions, whenever Deadlock swallowed his pride enough to ask them. Now, like with the companionable quiet, it’s Hot Rod’s turn.

“Providence is like…” Hot Rod waves a hand around a little in the air as he thinks, a tell that Deadlock has spent weeks finding secretly endearing. “It’s not _quite_ fate? It’s like – the care and direction the gods give you? Their influence upon our lives? ‘Kay, some would call that _fate_ or _destiny,_ but for the Guiding Hand – for the Guiding Hand that hasn’t been butchered by the Functionists – it’s more like the opportunities they open for you as you make your way through life?”

Hot Rod flaps his hand more for a few seconds as he tries to piece together what he wants to say. Deadlock stays quiet as he waits – his spark-mate sometimes needs time to wrangle his speeding thoughts into something coherent for another.

“Sure,” Hot Rod goes on when he’s ready again, “some of that influences your choices, guides your direction – hence, astrolabe – but at the end o’ the day, if you decide to go wildly off-course, there ain’t much they can do except adapt. _That’s_ a huge theme in pre-Functionist spiritualism – transformation and adaptation, in every sense possible, from both us mortal lot, an’ the gods who try an’ look out for us.”

“… No wonder they got rid of those themes,” Deadlock says.

Hot Rod snorts. It’s a surprisingly mundane sound for a holy room, but by his own words, Nyon’s practices were far more about the gods being a part of the people, rather than the people bowing before the gods. “Even Adaptus – _the_ god of transformation – got severely cut down to shape,” he agrees. “T-cogs? Sure. Any _other_ kind of mental or emotional evolution? Nah, too incendiary. People might start _thinking_ for themselves, and then where would we be?”

“Why Mortilus?” Deadlock asks, abruptly recalling the song he’d walked in on. “That was about transformation, wasn’t it? Why him and not Adaptus?”

“Mortilus is the god of death,” Hot Rod says, “an’ what is death but the final transformation? He’s the one you invoke when you’re laying to rest something you’re leaving behind – a metaphorical death, if you will. Adaptus is for looking forward, but first you gotta let go of what you’re leaving behind, ‘cause that’s part of the transformation, too. So, Mortilus.”

“Huh,” Deadlock says. “Take it he’s not so one-dimensional a figure in the old traditions, then?”

“Not at all,” Hot Rod says, “an’ now we’re circling back around to frag the Functionists.” He clicks his glossa. “I am _sick_ of those guys.”

Deadlock makes a hum of agreement, and the two of them fall silent, their shoulder pauldrons pressing together as they lean their weights against each other. One pair of blue optics and one pair of red optics watch the glowing illumination stick in the dim room, casting shadows across the astrolabe, the cog, mingling with the artificial light of the data-pad and the natural glow of the energon in the phial.

“… If you want,” Hot Rod says, quietly, after several minutes, “this can be yours, too.”

“What do you mean?” Deadlock asks, pitching his voice low to match Hot Rod’s.

Hot Rod gestures at the altar with one hand. “This,” he says. “Nyon’s practices were closed only because they were illegal, to hide them from the Functionists. Once, any outsider would have been welcome to pray in our temples. And – even later, when our true temples became naoi, and our songs became secret, those who Conjunxed with outsiders… well. No Nyonite let in outsiders lightly. They were welcome to take up our practices, should they so wish. I – I don’t want you to feel like you can’t ask about it at all, even if you decide not to join in.”

Then Hot Rod looks at Deadlock, optic to optic, and adds on, “I can’t give you the hymns of the temples in Rodion… but I can give you Nyon’s songs. If you want them.”

Deadlock swallows. His fingers find Hot Rod’s, and he twists their hands together, practice these last few weeks ensuring his claws come nowhere close to hurting his spark-mate. This is – he’d forgotten, until now, how much he’d wanted that old dream. He shutters his optics, and it’s not Rodion that swims before him in the darkness, it’s the glimpse he got of the ruins of Nyon, the rubble covered in dust and the fires burnt out.

“… Teach me the words,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, and welcome back to your regularly scheduled instalment of "Stairre Uses Hotlock As An Excuse To Just Go Crazy With The Worldbuilding." 
> 
> So... I knew I wanted to do _something_ with religion and spirituality in this series, but I didn't quite have it all fully formed in my head beyond "the Functionists used it as an oppression tool and did a whole bunch of cultural erasure stuff and everyone who knows even a little about what they did Hates That 'cause that isn't what religion is about at its core." So I had that but no more. 
> 
> THEN - I listened to _Cities In Dust_ , a song used in a Fall of Cybertron trailer. It's a cover, so it wasn't written specifically _for_ the TF universe, but it's in a trailer so it's _canon_ , and it mentioned a "Lares shrine". One Wikipedia article about those later, I had the leaping point for my world-building. The song can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_qh3_H9Bpw).
> 
> The word _naos_ and its plural _naoi_ are Greek words for the innermost part of a temple, where the altar and icons were kept. _Cella_ is the Latin equivalent. 
> 
> Okay, I think that's about it. And I thank you all for your patience: the next instalment in this series will be smut, I swear it! Hope you enjoyed this instalment and I'll see you all in December.
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


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